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Friday, March 17, 2017

Trump's Trying to Take Us Back to the 1900's

And I don't mean the 1950's or the 1940's. No, much further back, to very early in the 20th century. Maybe even into the late 1800's. Before labor laws were passed that protected us from abuse and total control by our employers. Before child labor laws. Before any adequate financial market regulation. Before any kind of anti-pollution law. Before the EPA ever existed. Before we had adequate schools for everyone. And of course, far before Civil Rights, reproductive rights, and any protection against discrimination.

The termination of the entire Department of Education. No more federal funding or regulations for schools. This is purportedly to "give the power back to the states," meaning that deep red states, many of which are poor, are fucked. This also means no federal funds for student loans or tuition grants, no Title IX protections, and the closure of many schools, including private ones. The American population becomes less educated.

HR 861🌲 calls for the "termination" (again, exact word) of the Environmental Protection Agency. No solutions for staffers or budget offered.

Because fuck the environment, right? No more protections for endangered species. Many laws protecting our air, water, and land from pollution would be essentially rendered useless. This is so ridiculous that the Atlantic thinks this is a stunt bill and will never be passed. But it still signals their intentions to take away our environmental protections and bring us back to an age where the rivers anywhere near cities were grey and on fire and people were routinely dying from air pollution.

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ALREADY CAN'T FUND ABORTIONS BUT REPUBLICANS REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THIS SIMPLE FACT FOR A FUCKING SECOND AND WOULD RATHER HAVE AN EXCUSE TO CUT POOR PEOPLE OFF FROM ANY FORM OF AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE BECAUSE THEY WANT US DEAD.

HR 147 👩🏽‍⚕️ criminalizes abortions and, if it becomes law, requires that abortion seekers + providers be punished with ~5 years in prison.

This doesn't directly criminalize abortion, but criminalizes abortion based on race or sex. I don't think race-selective abortions are even a thing, and certainly not in the U.S. It's a racist bill that specifically targets Asian Americans based on stereotypes about them not wanting girl babies, and also gives anyone an excuse to challenge any abortion. It's so easy to claim that someone seeking an abortion is doing so because they don't want a baby of a certain race or gender, and they could tie a pregnant person up in legislation until it's too late to have an abortion. It also authorized "fathers" to challenge the pregnant person's right to an abortion.

This appears to be a backup bill for if they can't terminate the Department of Education altogether. It limits the department's authority so that it can only give "block grants" to states. This is the voucher program you've been hearing about that makes education better for rich kids and shittier for everyone else.

According to Al Jazeera, these are just eight of over 2,000 bills that have been introduces since Lord Dampnut seized power. That's a lot of fucking bills. As was warned, this is likely an attempt to overwhelm us and deplete our energy so they can get a couple devastating bills through without much resistance. Some of them are clearly decoys that will never get passed, but some of them are viable and terrifying. Al Jazeera's video is pretty helpful, though for the record, I hate the whole "while you were paying attention to this, this other thing happened." First of all, we can pay attention to more than one thing in a day. Second, fuck you, it's all bad, stop trying to make people feel like suckers while you're a bastion of logic above emotional reactions to Trump's horrific behavior. Literally shut up.

Anyway. Shittier education, dirty air and water, busted unions, shittier healthcare. Then there's the budget plan that's going to defund programs like fucking Meals on Wheels. Meals on Wheels! Why doesn't Dampnut just kick a puppy on live TV?

If you aren't aware of the way people lived in the late 1800's and early 1900's, you should really read up on it. It was fucking disgusting and the average person live in abject poverty, working 18 hour days in dangerous and deplorable conditions just to survive. People fought hard to make things reasonably okay for workers and for the poor, and now Republicans are fighting hard to gut all those laws and regulations the common people have benefited from for all these decades. Don't let them take it. Don't let them turn this country back into a fucking hellscape on the off chance that you might somehow make it rich and be able to step on the rest of us with them.